Chapter Text
“To be more specific,” Harry continued, handing her the plate of sandwiches, “your husband was wanted by British Intelligence. We, of course, knew him by his real name—Jonathan Echo.”
Priscilla snorted, selecting the lone chicken sandwich. “He didn’t even bother to change his first name? How long have you guys been looking for him?”
“About, ah…” Harry sucked in a breath through their teeth. “Nineteen years?”
“Oh… my god.” She shook her head with a laugh. “You really need to hire some better guys, Harry.”
They pointedly ignored that comment, reaching into their desk. “All right, Mrs. Echo—”
“Corbeau,” Priscilla corrected.
“Sorry?”
She shrugged. “That’s the name on the marriage license, and I haven’t had time to change it back."
“Uh… noted.” Harry passed her a photograph and a magnifying lens. “Take a look at this. Tell me what you see.”
The photograph was in black-and-white, depicting three men and a woman standing against an army truck. Priscilla held up the magnifying lens to the photo, taking a bite of her sandwich.
She recognized the first man—thin and reedy, with an arm around the woman’s shoulders—almost immediately.
“That’s Jonathan,” Priscilla realized, looking up briefly. “He looks so young. When was this taken?”
“1944,” Harry told her. “Anyone else?”
“Um…” She moved the magnifying lens to the right, registering the dark hair and bold makeup of the woman beaming up at Jonathan. “Yeah, actually. This girl was at the funeral. Made a bit of a scene.”
“That would be Natalie Monroe,” they confirmed. “Your husband’s former flame, based on what we’ve been able to find.”
“Yeah, that explains a lot,” Priscilla said under her breath, moving further to the right—and wincing once she realized who the tallest person in the photograph was. “Oh, that’s a face you don’t forget. Jesus, he’s scary even without the scar.”
“That’s Scully Boone.” Harry tapped the photograph again. “And the last one?”
The final person in the picture was one that Priscilla didn’t recognize—a short, squat Black man with a scruffy beard, wild hair, and a mean look in his eye. But if she squinted, there was the faintest hint of a familial resemblance…
Priscilla snapped her fingers. “The other person at the funeral, the one who called herself Zora—she mentioned that Jonathan knew her uncle. Do you think this is him?”
“Well, that’s Chester Dunnagan in the photograph, and he does have a niece named Zora,” Harry recalled. “Tall, jewelry in her hair, dresses like she’s part of a biker gang?”
She nodded.
“That’d be her, then.” They raised an eyebrow. “And you’ve never seen any of these people before?”
“I think I’d remember if I met any of these people before,” Priscilla told them, pointing to the photograph. “Especially Miss Monroe.” She paused. “And Mr. Boone, for that matter.”
Harry took a bite of one of the liverwurst sandwiches, chewing thoughtfully. “Mrs. Corbeau, I’m afraid you’re in a great deal of danger.”
They said it so casually that it took her a few seconds to fully process that statement.
None of the people at the funeral seemed particularly safe to be around, from Natalie’s erratic mood swings to Zora’s cheery-yet-threatening air to Scully’s… everything. And in retrospect, Jonathan being wanted didn’t seem that much of a surprise, given everything she’d found out after his death.
But, well… she’d hoped that whatever he’d been involved in, him dying would mean the end of her being in any way involved.
Too much to hope for, apparently.
“And why exactly would I be in a great deal of danger?” Priscilla asked slowly, sitting up straighter in her chair.
“You’re Jonathan Echo’s wife,” they responded. “Now that he’s dead, you’re their only lead.”
She gestured for them to continue. “Only lead on what?”
Harry blinked. “Well—the money.”
Now they were starting to piss her off. “What money?”
“The money he got from selling everything in your flat. Quarter of a mil, remember?”
“Do I remember how much he got from selling literally everything I owned?” Priscilla repeated. “Yeah, Harry, I remember.”
“All right, settle down,” Harry said, waving his hands. “See, your husband stole 250,000 pounds from the British Government, a little after that picture was taken. Obviously, he spent it all—”
“And he just got all of it back,” she finished with a small groan, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Let me guess—Natalie, Scully, and Chester were his accomplices, and he screwed them over?”
Harry gave her a look of approval. “Well done, Mrs. Corbeau. You’re quite the little detective, aren’t you?”
Priscilla took another bite of her sandwich, deciding not to dignify that with a response. “You think one of them killed him?”
“That seems to be the most likely explanation.”
“And…” She chewed in thought for a moment, trying and failing to ignore the small swell of dread that was beginning to rise in her mind. “They think that I have it?”
Harry let out a little laugh. “Well, of course you do, Mrs. Corbeau. You’re the only one who could have it.”
“I’m the only one?” Priscilla said skeptically, folding her arms. “Harry, if I had a quarter of a million dollars, believe me, I’d know it.”
“Nevertheless, Mrs. Corbeau, you’ve got it,” Harry told her, getting to their feet. “It could be cash, it could be a check, it could be a safe deposit key—go looking for it, you’ll find it.”
“But—”
“Look for it,” they repeated. “Those three people know you’ve got the money just as surely as we do. And I can guarantee you, you won’t be safe until that money’s in our hands.”
After a beat, Priscilla exhaled. “Harry, if you’re trying to scare me, you’re doing a first-rate job of it.”
“Not trying to scare you, just trying to make you understand.” They wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Here’s where you can call me, day or night—it’s a direct line to both my office and my apartment. And I wouldn’t tell anyone you came to see us. It could prove fatal for both you and them.”
Priscilla carefully pocketed the number, giving them a small nod.
“Like I said, Mrs. Corbeau, you’re in a great deal of danger,” Harry said quietly. “And I’m sorry to bring this up, but… you’d do well to remember what happened to your husband.”
She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d called Skips, and not Willow and Danielle.
Sure, Priscilla was damn good at keeping a secret—ironic, considering her previous choice of profession—but she knew there was no way that the two of them wouldn’t see through her flimsy “there was just some stuff about his immigration records they wanted me to clear up” excuse. And Harry’s warning about what could happen if she told anyone was firmly stuck in her mind.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a little part of her that had determined who was the best collateral damage. If the truth came crashing out of her, better it be to someone she barely knew than her literal twin and sister-in-law.
And on the less morbid side of things, well… maybe there was something a little bit comforting about Skips’s presence.
Priscilla had asked Skips to meet her at a park near her flat—well, her old flat, which the building super had evidently already put up for rent—and she’d initially intended for them to meet at the front gate. Instead, he found her in the park’s center, watching a Punch & Judy puppet show from the sidelines.
“Thought you said you’d be at the gate,” Skips said, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Changed your mind?”
She shrugged. “After the past few days, I figured I might as well try to get some laughs in.”
Skips followed her gaze to the puppet show, face blanching slightly. “Those are, uh… unique puppet designs.”
“Yeah, I was freaked out by them as a kid, too,” Priscilla assured him. “I’ve gotten desensitized since then.”
“Good to know.” He paused. “So… who are they?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t speak French, do you?”
“I’m rusty,” he admitted. “Still having trouble with English, honestly.”
“That one’s Punch, and that one’s Judy,” she said, pointing to each of the puppets. “They’re married.”
Skips let out a half-grunt, half-laugh as Judy started smacking Punch on the head with a wooden stick. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“I didn’t say it was a healthy marriage.”
Another little puppet appeared as Punch fell out of view, a mixture of cheers and laughter coming from the small crowd of children watching.
“Who’s that with the hat?” Skips asked.
“That’s the policeman,” Priscilla answered. “He’s arresting Judy for the murder of Punch.”
“Showed up rather quickly, didn’t he?”
The policeman puppet started smacking Judy with the wooden stick.
“What’s she saying now?” Skips said.
“She’s pleading her innocence. Claiming she didn’t do it.”
“But… she did, right? We just saw her do it.”
Priscilla twisted her lips. “I’m inclined to believe her.”
The two of them watched in silence for a little while longer, until the Punch puppet appeared again—and promptly disappeared.
Skips frowned. “Who was that?”
“That’s Punch.”
“Thought he was dead.”
“No, he’s only pretending to be dead. To teach her a lesson.”
A beat.
“Only he’s not pretending, is he?” she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself. “Someone threw him off a train.”
“Ah.” Skips clicked his tongue. “I’m… guessing we’re not talking about Punch anymore, are we?”
Priscilla shook her head, tearing her eyes away from Punch and Judy beating up the policeman puppet.
“All right, well, you can’t stay here watching disturbing puppet shows all day,” he announced. “So…” He gave her a theatrical little bow. “I humbly elect myself vice president in charge of cheering you up.”
She let out a small snort in spite of herself. “What does that mean?”
“Well, today, it means I’m taking you out for coffee,” Skips said, lifting his head. “And tomorrow, if you’re willing, we could go to the library together. It’s all up to you.”
“You’re looking to distract me, then,” Priscilla concluded.
“I’m looking to make you feel better, Cilla. You deserve better than to sit around thinking about someone who only made you miserable.”
She considered that for a minute.
You’re in danger, her mind chose to remind her. That’s what Harry said, you’re in danger. Hanging around Skips isn’t gonna change that. It might even make it worse.
And yet…
“Fuck it,” Priscilla decided, holding out her hand. “What coffee shop did you have in mind?”
Skips beamed. “Anywhere you want to go, it’s up to you. You know the city better than I do, after all.”
“Oh, okay, I see, you want me to take you somewhere.”
“Well, I’ll be fronting the bill.”
“All right, well, in that case, I’d better pick somewhere expensive…”
Over the course of the next week, Priscilla really got to know her new friend.
During their coffee date, she learned that Skips went to college in Ireland and graduate school in New York, where he’d met the woman who would later become his wife—and ex-wife, after it became increasingly apparent that the two of them had become radically different people from when they first married. Aside from that, he’d lived in London for most of his life, and had only just moved to Paris about a month and a half prior to that, citing a midlife crisis as the result of the sudden change of scenery.
They’d gone to the library and took a walk in the park the following day, where they swapped stories about their careers—Priscilla would regale him with the antics that surrounded some of her favorite pieces she’d written, while he’d talk about some of the things his more eccentric clients would request. The day after that, they’d gone out to a cafe that had a free-to-play piano, during which she learned that Skips was a fan of a satirical artist named Tom Lehrer and knew most of his songs by heart.
Skips had also apparently turned thirty-eight about three weeks before they met, and the move had left him too busy to celebrate. Priscilla immediately took him to her favorite patisserie as soon as she’d heard that.
He accompanied her back to her hotel every time their days out came to a close, though he never invited himself inside. Priscilla wasn’t sure whether to be charmed or annoyed by that—on one hand, Skips was very clearly an actual gentleman, but on the other hand, between spending more time with the first guy she’d felt comfortable around in a while and lying half-asleep, half-awake and jumping at every sound, she would’ve taken the first option.
Though, of course, there was no telling Skips why she didn’t feel particularly safe going back to her hotel alone.
But after a week of absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening, and no sign of any of the people from the funeral, Priscilla had started to think that Harry had just been overreacting. That maybe the funeral incident had just been something along the lines of a trio of co-conspirators making sure that their work had been done, and that they’d already found the money and disappeared.
That was, until Friday night.
Skips and Priscilla had decided to get dinner out at The Black Sheep Club—jazz, wine, encouraging Skips to expand his woefully British palette. After the band finished up their third song, the emcee climbed down from the stage and clapped his hands.
“Ladies and gentleman!” he called, repeating it in a few different languages. “Everyone, come up, come to the floor! Form two lines!”
“What’s going on?” Skips asked, giving Priscilla a confused look.
“Fun and games,” she responded with a grin. “Apparently, we’re the floor show.”
“We are?”
“Everyone is, come on!”
All of the nightclub patrons got up from their tables and got onto the dance floor, forming two lines as best as they could.
“Thank you very much,” the emcee said, holding up two oranges. “There are two teams. For each team, there is one orange. Madames, I want you to put these under your chin like so—”
He handed the oranges to the two women standing closest to him, who each tucked them under their chins.
“Now, the goal is to pass the oranges to each other without the use of your hands,” he continued. “First one to drop loses. And you may begin… now!”
The emcee blew into a little whistle as the music kicked up again.
Skips, unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—was second in their team’s line, and the woman with the orange seemed thoroughly uninterested in the whole game. Priscilla couldn’t help but laugh at all of his attempts to get the orange underneath his own chin, him constantly mumbling apologies under his breath as the woman just gave him a disapproving stare.
Eventually, though, Skips succeeded in getting it under his chin—or, well, halfway between his chin and his shoulder—and immediately turned towards Priscilla with a pleading look in his eyes. “Help.”
“All right, keep your shirt on,” she teased. “Not a fan of party games?”
“Please, just—get this orange, I’m going to drop it any second now, I don’t want our team to lose—”
“I got it, I got it.”
And she did have it, though it took almost a minute of both her and Skips trying their damndest to make sure that the orange didn’t fall onto the floor. The whole thing was so ridiculous, both of them were giggling like idiots by the time Priscilla was finally able to pull away, and Skips’s face had turned a very interesting shade of beet red.
In fact, most of the other patrons were giggling like idiots, so… that was probably the point of the whole little icebreaker game.
Still grinning over how flustered Skips was, Priscilla turned to the next person without a second thought. Not even registering who they were, or what they looked like.
Not even registering, that is, until she heard that high-pitched, Jersey-Shore accent worming its way into her ear.
“Heya, bitch,” Natalie Monroe hissed. “Didn’t think you’d see me again, huh?”
Priscilla’s blood ran cold.
Play dumb—don’t panic—don’t give her anything to latch onto—
“Who are you?” Priscilla whispered, keeping her voice as measured as possible.
“Your worst fuckin’ nightmare is who I am,” Natalie sneered, her fingernails digging into Priscilla’s arm. “And I know that if Jonny put a ring on it, he told ya about our money, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Bullshit,” she snarled. “How’d ya pay for that fancy apartment? Those nice new clothes? You think a goddamn college professor could pay for all that shit?”
“I don’t know,” Priscilla repeated, gritting her teeth, “what you’re talking about.”
Natalie let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, sure, play innocent—where the fuck is it?”
“Let go of me.”
“Awww, c’mon, honey, we’re playing a game,” Natalie said in a mocking tone. “You don’t wanna be a bad sport, do ya?”
“Let go of me—”
“We stole that money fair and fuckin’ square, you hear me? And if you don’t tell me where the fuck it is, I’m gonna—”
Priscilla slammed her heel down onto Natalie’s foot.
Natalie instantly let out a loud string of swears, stumbling backward as Priscilla shoved her away and ran out of the room.
She didn’t bother looking back to see what had become of the orange, or—God forbid—Natalie had decided to run after her. All she cared about at this point was getting out, and getting help.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, Priscilla berated herself, ducking into the lobby phone booth. Of fucking course I don’t get off easy, of course Harry was right—
Goddamnit, and I left Skips in there with that—no, no, don’t call her a psycho, don’t stoop to her level—
“C’mon, c’mon,” Priscilla muttered, turning the dials of the phone as quickly as she could. “Harry, I swear to god, if you’re busy right now—”
A very long and very low beeeeeeep sounded from the other line.
Priscilla spun around as the door to the booth was pushed open, revealing a grinning Zora on the other side.
“Heya!” she said cheerfully. “Funny running into you like this, huh?”
“Go away,” Priscilla rasped.
“Hmm…” Zora tapped her chin, revealing fingernails that looked sharp enough to be banned by the Geneva Convention. “Nah, I think I’ll stay here for a bit.”
Priscilla fixed her with a glare, willing herself not to show any kind of fear. “What the hell do you want?”
“Uncle Chester’s money,” she responded, very matter-of-factly. “Just tell me where it is, and I’ll be on my way.”
“I don’t know where it is—”
“Oh, good, then we can keep talking!” Zora chirped. “I just wanna say, for the record, I’m soooooo sorry about Nat. Don’t be mad at her and Scully, though, heartbreak really does a number on people—”
“For the record,” Priscilla growled, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
Zora scrunched up her nose. “Well, that’s mean. I’m a perfectly nice person.”
“Let me out of here, or so help me god—”
“Now, see, I’m not sure if I actually believe you when you say you don’t know where it is,” Zora continued, pulling—shit—a tiny little razor blade out from her pocket. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s stupid of Nat to be jealous of you when Jonny’s the one who screwed both of you over—”
She started playing with the razor blade. “But I do agree with her that he told you about it. Maybe right before he left, maybe right after you got hitched, I don’t really know, but—whoops!”
She flicked the razor blade into Priscilla’s lap, covering her mouth in mock surprise.
“Ohhhhh, look at that, I’m so clumsy when people don’t tell me things!” Zora said sweetly, pulling out a second little blade. “And I think if you don’t at least give me a hint about what your stupid dead husband did with my uncle’s money—uh-oh!”
Priscilla flinched as the blade came dangerously close to hitting her on the head this time.
“It happened again, I’m so sorry!” Zora whined. “Seriously, Priscilla, it would be so much easier if you’d just talk already—”
“I have no idea where it is, and I barely know who you people are,” Priscilla told her. “That’s the truth.”
Zora’s gaze flicked from playful malice to dispassionate boredom.
“Fine,” she said with a shrug, pulling out a lighter and a match. “Fine, we can do something different.”
Faster than Priscilla could react, Zora struck a match and dropped it into her lap.
“Stop it!” Priscilla shrieked, immediately swiping it away before it could light her on fire.
“The thing is—” Zora dropped another lit match— “Nat and Scully are pretty persuasive people. But even so—” she dropped a third— “they’re doing this for people who are dead. Whereas I—” a fourth— “need it for someone who’s still alive and kicking. So my cause is more noble, right?”
“Why in the hell should I care? You’re insane!”
Zora let out a decidedly unsettling laugh. “Oh, sweetie, I’m flattered, but please don’t flirt with me, I’m taken.”
Priscilla stared at her. “You thought that was flir—”
“You know what, you’re right, I’m being mean.” She gave her a condescending pat on the head. “I’ll come back later when you’re more ready to chat, mmkay? And I’ll tell Scully to go easy on you.”
With that, Zora closed the door to the phone booth, leaving Priscilla alone with her incoming panic attack.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, shit, goddamnit, fuck, fuck, FUCK—
What the hell am I gonna do now?
Do I change hotels? Do I run? Do I call the police?
What do I tell Danielle, or Willow? Fuck, what do I tell—
The door to the phone booth opened again.
Priscilla let out an involuntary screech, only momentarily calming down when she saw that Skips was on the other side.
“S—sorry,” he stammered, holding up a hand. “I just—you ran out of there so fast, and—are you all right? What’re you doing in here?”
She let out an unsteady exhale, leaning heavily against the wall.
“I’m having a nervous breakdown,” Priscilla said simply.